Welcome to the Streets of Avalon. This massive fantasy city holds adventure, intrigue, and a darkness that comes from its denizens, both above and below. Our Kickstarter is to fund the sourcebook for the city of Avalon along with additional material through stretch goals to add more darkness to the city and provide supplemental material for the world’s most popular role playing game.
The Streets of Avalon has a gazetteer of the city covering the people who...

The fourth mini-mission of Defiance in Phlan is the most controversial, the hardest to run for many DMs, and the one that can be the most satisfying to players if everything goes well. As I attempted to highlight each pillars of play within the various mini-missions, this is the one where I decided to let roleplaying interaction have its time in the spotlight.
Roleplaying, as a skill, can come naturally to some and harder to others....

In this series of blog articles, I have so far looked at the design of the Adventurers League Season 1 introductory adventure Defiance in Phlan, including the first two mini-adventures: “The Meeting at Deepnight” and “The Screams at Dawn.” Today I want to take a closer look at the third mini-adventure, “The Dead at Highsun.”
In the overall structure of the adventure, I wish I had placed this one second instead of third. In hindsight, this...

The previous two blog articles in this series at the overall structure, and then the first mini-adventure, in the Adventurers League introductory adventure Defiance in Phlan for the Tyranny of Dragons storyline season. This week I am looking at the second mini-adventure entitled "The Screams at Dawn." For those of you who do not want to witness self-flagellation, turn away now. This is my least favorite of all the missions in this adventure, and I...

Last week, in my blog post called "Lessons Learned: Four Years Designing 5e," I talked about writing Defiance in Phlan, one of the first 5e adventures available to the public, and the first for the D&D Adventurers League. The design restrictions and mandates for that adventure made it one of the most challenging I have every written. It had to introduce a new edition of D&D, a new organized play campaign, be comprised on five...

When the Adventurers League launched at Gen Con 2014, in conjunction with the release of the 5th edition of D&D, there were a great many question marks. How would the new edition be received? How strong would sales be? Would the new Living campaign, referred to as the D&D Adventurers League, be a comparable replacement to the Living campaigns of the past? Overall, what did the future hold for D&D in particular and roleplaying games...

Wow! Six years ago today I finished penning this article for the D&D website about my work on the lead adventure in the 200th issue of Dungeon Magazine. It is no longer available on the Wizards of the Coast website, but if you have any nostalgia for the history of the game, and for 4e adventures, give it a read. Enjoy!
The Enduring Flame
The first issue of Dungeon magazine was published when I was in high...

Buffalo, NY – August 15, 2017 – Encoded Designs, a tabletop game publishing company, announced today that it has signed a licensing agreement with Brett Bloczynski of Gaming & BS to publish The Streets of Avalon, a low fantasy city adventure setting.
“I’ve always loved the stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, city based adventures where the magic was more mystical than magical, and the horrors of Howard’s Conan stories,” said Encoded Designs Lead Developer...

August 4, 2017— BUFFALO, NY: Encoded Designs announced today that it has signed a licensing agreement with Tracy Barnett to publish a revised and expanded edition of his Fate-based tabletop RPG, Iron Edda.
“This is a great opportunity for both Tracy and Encoded Designs,” said Encoded Designs President Phil Veccione. “Iron Edda is a unique campaign setting that combines Norse myth with epic action through the Fate system. It's Pacific Rim meets Vikings with a dash...